Imperfictly perfect

I just read Annie Modesitt's blog and she writes about some people who criticized her for some silly grammar mistakes she made (even though she made some on purpose to emphasize her point she was making). Believe me - thanks God for having a spelling-check on this blog because many times I touch the wrong key and I'd be in trouble without it. Though her today's blog posting made me think about how imperfection can lead to great things.

It is hard for me to admit, but I am born a perfectionist, and, as Annie correctly assessed, it does NOT make for a happy life: To keep being perfect takes a lot of energy out of you and many times things are out of your control and then you can drive yourself insane. I had to reassess this when I gave birth to my daughters and could not stand up to my unattainable standards. And giving up being perfect makes one happier. I first realized this when I was flying with my 2 then young daughters overseas by myself (first daughter was barely 2 years old and the second daughter was just about 6 months old - still breastfed at the time - an extra stress for me!?). I set my hopes really low for having a pleasant trip and it turned out to be better than expected. That was a lesson to me - do NOT try to be perfect - nobody really cares anyways. Here are few examples of how imperfect things can actually turn into great things.


My daughter made a dress!

My eldest daughter (8 1/2 yrs) has been working on improving her knitting skills. This past week she was learning how to purl and thus being able to transition from garter stitch to Stockinette Stitch. This was her first swatch - red rectangular (see below). She also wanted to learn how to decrease and so she did try on the same swatch and viola - here it is - we turned the swatch into a Barbie's red-carpet dress! Yes, it has few imperfections - see the enlarged stitches at the lower part of the dress, but it turned out to be a nice detail on the dress. I am very proud of her. She was so excited, that she even learned how to sew it together on the same piece! Had she was dwelling on the piece to be perfect, she would never have the finished dress today! She astound me how cleverly she added a piece of yarn that was leftover from sewing the dress for a belt. Very stylish I must say - not to be bias.
















Imperfect apple:

Another example of imperfection turned good is my rotten apple. The other day I dug out of my apple bowl an apple that was getting rotten. Since I don't like to waste things (learned from my Grandma who lived through the starving years of the World War II and I was reminded of it growing up - doing the same thing to my kids, by the way), I cut the rotten pieces away and then looked at it and saw a very interesting picture - an apple within an apple. How imperfectly perfect! My husband made me take a picture of it and here it is:












So the lesson is, I guess, accept being imperfect and see what happens in your life. You never see what will come your way.